The student film opens with a close-up of prescription pills swirling in water and the bleat of psychedelic rock.

It's not exactly the image most people associate with New England's storied, elite private boarding schools.

But the stereotypical land of blue blazers and deep-pocketed khakis provided nurturing and fodder for Oliver Salk, the film school-bound Taft School graduate behind the film, "Higher Education."

Salk spent his senior year at the private Watertown boarding school directing his first full-length feature film, one whose name nods to its drug-fueled, dark plot. Amid a tapestry of Gothic buildings, the 18-year-old used the insular boarding school world as a backdrop for his gritty cautionary tale.

"The content of the film is somewhat controversial," said Salk, who sought — and received — administrators' permission before delving into the year-long project that fell beyond the purview of an official class.

School leaders supported him, Salk said, provided Taft's signs weren't used as part of the fictitious school where students selling the attention-deficit drug Adderall quickly becomes robust. "In no way were we trying to shine a light or anything. It's 100-percent fictional. It's purposefully crazy and unrealistic, to be entertaining."

The film follows Ethan, an upperclassman bent on attending Yale University with his girlfriend. Introduce a zany, law-bending school psychologist and heaping, illicit doses of Adderall and dark drama ensues. Already, the film has been screened before nearly 600 classmates and faculty at Taft, and at an invitation-only showing for supporters last month at Bantam Cinema. A film fan page on Facebook earned more than 1,000 "likes," and the YouTube trailer has been viewed more than 8,000 times. Film festivals represent another potential frontier.

"But it wasn't, 'We want to get into this festival.' We wanted to entertain," said Salk, of Washington, Conn., who heads to the University of Colorado at Boulder later this month as a film major.

As with any creative work, certain truths underlie the issues Salk and his cast explored. Some, like young love, are touchstones of teenage life. As in the made-up world of his fictitious Westfield Academy, letters from Yale and Brown and Harvard are highly — and routinely — anticipated. And as with just about any place where there are adolescents, decisions about using drugs or alcohol loom. In "Higher Education," Ethan peddles Adderall to students eager to gain an "edge" to make enough money to bribe his way in to Yale, where he has received a letter of deferment.

The film was a way for Salk to prove to himself that he could pull off making a feature-length film. In his junior year, a 40-minute independent study project whet his appetite for directing. It also forged a partnership with Tommy Robertshaw, a Taft rising senior and New York native who became the lead actor and writer for "Higher Learning."

Knowing they wanted to make a movie, the teens turned what at first seemed a logistical limitation — living and studying at boarding school — into an advantage.

"That is our world," said Salk, explaining the film had an automatic, built-in audience of contemporaries from Phillips Exeter to Deerfield academies. After concluding that the film would be set at boarding school, Salk and Robertshaw developed the story, its central conflict and characters.

The teens launched a Kickstarter campaign, soliciting donations through the online site. Within two months, Salk and Robertshaw were able to raise their goal of more than $15,000. Most of that money came from friends and family, and most went to equipment rental. A cast of three lead actors and nine supporting actors worked on days off from school, and late into the night.

Regarded as Taft's unofficial filmmaker, Salk got a boost when The New York Times published a major piece on rising Adderall abuse among students.

In its FDA-approved use, Adderall, typically prescribed for Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, stimulates the brain with an amphetamine mixture that encourages concentration. Increasingly, non-diagnosed students seeking a competitive "edge" have abused the medication to increase their perceived focus and academic performance — although researchers found taking the drug yielded no advantage over a placebo.

Meanwhile, a recent Brigham Young University study that mapped how and where mentions of Adderall trended on the social media site Twitter found that the drug was most mentioned among students in the Northeast and South, during exam periods. The lead researcher called Adderall "the most commonly abused prescription stimulant among college students."

Salk consulted his father, an emergency room doctor at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington, about the use, effects and abuse of the drug. He sought out friends who had used the drug — either legitimately to treat attention deficit disorder, or by misusing it.

"It's not an everyday thing, but it's relevant to us, to anyone almost at any high school," said Salk.

More than a crash course in prescription drug abuse, the film taught Salk lessons in patience and efficiency, he said. He continues to tweak the film, which may be released online eventually.

Above all, Salk noted, the film's plot taught him a concurrent lesson — to let go of his perfectionism occasionally.

Salk related to the protagonist's desire to follow a certain collegiate path. Known for shooting lacrosse games and admissions videos, Salk admitted that time he funneled into the studio detracted from his academics. As classmates found out where they would — or wouldn't — go this fall, Salk said he experienced a roller coaster of emotions like those of his characters.

"Nothing could be better, or nothing could be worse, than getting in, or not getting in, to where you want to go," said Salk, who is contemplating an eventual transfer to the University of Southern California or another college known for film. "I was rejected to some places, I was accepted to some places ... It was really relevant."

"Oliver always had interest in film, but his commitment, his risk taking, his zeal all meant that when he graduated he was the finest talent I have seen in 30 years," headmaster William MacMullen wrote in an email. "What he did is really remarkable, but a lot of students and faculty have asked, 'Who is going to be our movie maker now that Oliver is gone?' What a legacy of creativity and excellence he left."

Screening his film for classmates before departing, hearing them laugh and applaud his hard work more than made up for any admissions disappointments, Salk added.

"For me it was really the highlight of my high school experience and, to this point, one of the best moments of my life," he said.

Post a reader comment

We encourage your feedback and dialog. Please be civil and respectful.If you're witty, to the point and quotable, your reader comments may also be included on the Around the Towns page of The Sunday Republican. Readers must be registered and logged in to post comments on the site. Registration is free. Click Here to register.
A Subscription is not required to post comments only a Registration.